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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 22:53:18 GMT -5
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 22:55:07 GMT -5
The Flash
Issue 0: Time Flies, Prelude
Written by House Of Mystery
Cover by Brandon Herren
Edited by Brandon Herren |
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 22:56:08 GMT -5
My name is Barry Allen. I’m a forensic investigator in Keystone City… I’m not special like this, in the day-to-day toil at the lab… I do a job… But it’s what I do after hours that makes me the target of all the freaks of the city…
It was like any other night, on my usual patrol…
Things happened. People died. My friends… Colleagues… They all died… I made a mistake.
She died.
When they struck.
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 22:58:18 GMT -5
My… ‘Rogues Gallery’… (As they enjoy being called…) attacked as a unit…
Can’t move… Leg broken… Surrounded by them… Surrounded by them all…
Captain Cold, ice gun aimed… Ever present as the leader…
Captain Boomerang, razor edged weapons in each hand…
The Folding man, moving his hands quickly, nervous…
Weather Wizard, an electrical storm raging at the end of a wand…
Murmur, his masked face belying a murderous mind… Knives in hand, tipped in poison…
Heat Wave, flames licking at the end of his flame thrower…
Mirror Master, some high tech gun pointed at my head… I can see my reflection…
The Trickster… Grenades drawn, a smile plastered across his face…
Frozen, burnt, cut, battered and beaten, they kept the pressure on, not allowing my super metabolism to keep up, and now, they bought out the big guns, the big man, the mastermind…
And they’re all… Going… To kill me…
“Geeeet awaaay!” A loud voice, not like any human sound… Shaky, vibrating, like a distorted radio transmission. I watch as a blur snaps the neck of Murmur…
The Folding Man vanishes in an instant, running away like normal, but then reappears a beaten wreck, thrown to the ground with a wet snap as whatever bones left untouched shatter…
I see him lure Mirror Master's fire at his yellow blur, but connect with the Trickster, the energy beam connecting, turning him into a reflection, and then exploding in a torrent of glass…
He’s killing the Rogues… And I can’t do anything about it…
Mirror Master hit by two razor sharp boomerangs, blood everywhere…
A misplaced Trick bomb-hitting Boomerang in the chest, causing his upper torso to explode… He’s everywhere at once… Luring power and energy, and throwing it on his enemies…
The two that are left… Heat Wave and Cold… The man stops for a moment, between them… Yellow flashes in and out of reality, his uniform is the exact opposite of mine, his face covered, the same sleek material… Who is this?
The two rogues, the last of them, fire their weapons, but the man is gone… And the two men are engulfed by their opposites… Cold screams as his skin explodes and blisters, Heat Wave is silent… But the cracks along his face grow, splinter off, until he collapses on the floor in a pile of frozen flesh.
I’m frozen on the spot, my leg healed, my cuts and bruises gone… But I’m in shock… This man… This… This super speed guy… He’s killed all of them… No one could escape his grasp… And now, I see him flicker into reality, the yellow of his suit catching the sunlight, blinding me… He takes of the mask and screams:
“The eeeeeennnnnddddddd issssss neeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrrr…”
That face… Familiar…
“Sooooooo waaaaaaaaaakkkeeeeee upppppppppp.”
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 22:59:51 GMT -5
I jerk up in bed, sweat pouring from my body, my hand shaking at super speed… I turn to Iris, lying next to me… And grab my vibrating limb… Too late… The effect spreads, and I fall through the bed, through the floor below it, and land in the empty apartment downstairs… Shoot… I’ll never get used to these powers…
I run up the steps back to my apartment, and vibrate through the door, this time… After many, many replacements… I get through without taking half the molecules with me. Nice. I may be able to get the hang on this after all!
It’s six in the morning… The sun has just come up on this fine Keystone City day… And I’m already haunted by something that I just don’t get…
Last year… A bit longer maybe… I got doused in chemicals… Then struck by lightning… (And before you ask, that IS painful…)
Only to discover, at a very convenient moment, just as my long time girlfriend is coming to meet me… (Funny story I may eventually tell her… Meanwhile, while she’s in the elevator, I’m half naked in my lab, my skin growing back, scar tissue healing, and getting an unscheduled growth spurt of body hair…) that my metabolism has sped up. I get up off the floor just as she walks in. She sees me there, in all my torn clothes, and my smoldering glory… And just looks at me… And smiles, gives me a kiss, and passes me one of my spare shirts from the cabinet next to the door! No questions!
That’s love.
Anyway, through out the day, I discover that everything’s going so sloooowly… I walk by my girl, then I turn to her, and she’s half way down the street! I double back, not missing a stride, and to my amazement… Time just… Stands still… And nowadays, I have to be so concentrated on my walking, my movements… Just so I don’t vibrate through someone, or use my super speed in front of Iris’ parents. (Awkward conversation there, I’m telling you…)
So, during the night of the first day, I run (and I mean run…) back to the lab, examine every chemical bottle, and there’s everything wrong with what I was splashed with. Deadly, deadly stuff… Yet I’m here… And I was stuck there thinking…
What did that lightning bolt do to me?
And was it lightning?
Am I still even human?
And when I ask myself too many questions, I go for a run. I run through every part of the street, checking everything, stopping crime, tying criminals up and hanging them from a lamppost in front of KCPD station. In office hours… I work beneath the station, in the crime lab… The city council decided to consolidate costs by putting the geeks and jocks in one cramped building.
How clever.
Anyway, I run, and things occur to me. That dream… The guy in my dream… He was about my age… Messy hair… Couldn’t see what colour, he was moving in and out of… wherever like that… His uniform… Stark yellow, bright… vibrant… The colour scheme the reverse of mine…
Reverse…
That word sticks in my mind for some reason. Reverse…
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 23:00:21 GMT -5
Time shatters with an almighty thud and a man steps through. The hole in reality knits back together like a zip, then vanishes from the clear air. “I’m here.” The man smiles, and runs.
Time shatters with an almighty thud and a man steps through. The hole in reality knits back together like a zip, then vanishes from the clear air. “Timmmeeeee issss liiikkkeee a rrriiiiiveeeeerrr…” The man smiles and runs between the ticks of time.
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 23:01:14 GMT -5
I think back to my earliest adventure, and my first… And only… Meta powered adversary.
His name was The Turtle… And he was opposite. Not my reverse… My opposite… He was a scientist… Pat Kanigher… Who was crippled in some accident… I don’t know the details… But he developed a device on his hospital bed, to travel back in time…
A treadmill of some kind… And he was able to operate it with his wheel chair… Crazy scheme… But it exploded around him, sent him back in time, sure… but he was trapped between the moments… And he became the slowest man alive… A massive intellect trapped in the body of a slow, undeveloped body. He was a bit peeved, as you can guess, and planned bank heists to fund another ‘cosmic treadmill’ construction… To reverse the accident, and make sure that there were no side effects… Anyway, I’m off topic, and I have something I need to do.
I joined another of the Cape crowd on a mission to outer space. Simple.
And the result of which…
The fallout begins here.
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 23:02:13 GMT -5
I arrive home at seven, and wake up Iris with a quick breakfast (egg, bacon, tomato, hash browns, toast, anything else I could muster up in a flash…) and once she’s done…
“Barry, what are you doing?” She wipes a crumb from the side of her lip and smiles slightly as I kneel on the floor beside the bed.
“Iris West. Marry me.” Barry flips open the small box in his hand and smiles.
“B-Barry… I… I don’t know what to say!”
“I think you do.”
“Of course! Barry Allen, I love you!”
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2005 23:03:00 GMT -5
TO BE CONTINUED!
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Post by Brandon on Oct 30, 2005 6:41:56 GMT -5
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Post by mockingbird on Jul 31, 2011 12:17:07 GMT -5
To let us know what you think of this issue, please visit the letters page here!
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